Posted on 09/16/2010 3:46:26 PM PDT by billorites
Dead mice packed with acetaminophen, strapped to pieces of cardboard and dropped from helicopters may help control one of the big headaches for the Pacific island of Guam the brown tree snake.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week began dropping the expired rodents packed with 80 mg of the generic equivalent of Tylenol on the forests of Naval Base Guam.
Since scientists discovered that the household pain reliever was deadly to the brown tree snakes, theyve been trying to figure out how to get it to where many of the serpents live in the canopies of the islands forests, according to a report in Stars & Stripes. The Tylenol-loaded mice are attached to two pieces of cardboard joined by paper streamers that snake exterminators hope will catch on tree branches, providing deadly snacks for snakes at those heights, according to the Stripes report.
The aerial attack on the tree snakes is designed to augment current trapping systems, which are placed around ports and airports to prevent the snakes from hitching rides to other Pacific islands such as Hawaii and causing the same ecological nightmares theyve been responsible for on Guam.
"The brown tree snake traps that you see around Guam are actually the most effective trap for catching snakes in the world," USDA Assistant State Director Dan Vice told Guam Newswatch.
"Most of the traps that people see however are sitting on a fence or on a port. And they're targeting the few snakes that might get to that fence."
So the mouse bombs have begun falling on the jungle forests, where the USDA says there can be as many as 20 brown tree snakes per acre, one of the highest snake densities recorded anywhere in the world.
The USDA says brown tree snakes have wiped out...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.blogs.cnn.com ...
Then the brown snakes will carefully unstrap the dead mice and proceed to eat them.
Yep...the U.S. Government is definitely involved
The end result will be snake with really clear sinuses. Thanks billorites.
Yep, and then, according to at least one democrat, if the people go to the other end the Island will flip over and drown all the snakes/Kidding(just in case someone didn't realize I was joking around).
I take it these snakes are pretty deadly?
Doesn't she have headaches?
Besides there are more rodents than ever at the WH. This might keep those pesky rodents population down. Also has Obama been bathing lately? I don't see so many flies on his face. Third world countries are not noted for personal hygiene. Obama has a third world mentality as well as third world hygiene.
They won’t eat dead rodents. They won’t recognize them as food.
wELL, THAT VISUAL MADE ME LAUGH.
If the snakes only eat live mice, they could outfit each mouse with a little parachute, that would look cute.
lol
I wonder what a snake trap looks like?
Why not simply play 0bambi's speeches to the snakes on loudspeakers, then place the Tylenol where they can reach it?
Eliminate the middle-mouse, I always say.
The end result will be a complete disaster.
Just catch it :^)
Pet stores sell “pinks” which are frozen baby mice, as snake food. Why would I know this? Grandchildren.
There are a few things we can learn from the younger generation....:O) yukky things of course....:O)
That in a nutshell is why I haven’t owned any snakes.
After finding an Eastern Kingsnake in the backyard I was considering trying to tame the next wild juvenile we ran into, as more than one of my snake owning friends got their starts that way (one at the tender age of three!), but having kept rodents as pets, I just couldn’t do it.
My 2nd kid whacked a flying squirrel with a tennis racket, once.
It landed on my face.
Needless to say, we had words...
I already have a beard. I don’t need to blow a squirell.
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